3×3

Last week was fun!

(I actually just visited one of the Izu islands this past weekend. Lots of sleeping and sand time. More on that later.)

3 earthquakes in three days. Just like all good things, right?
#1 caught me during dinner with a fellow Californian. No one else at the restaurant seemed to care either. Awesome.
#2 woke me up, had me ponder whether to scoot to a doorway or not, rattled the shelves a bit.
#3 found me sleepily brushing my teeth, and I actually convinced myself it wasn’t an earthquake. Couldn’t be bothered – I was going to be late for a meeting! So the swimming feeling in my head was just sleepiness, and the creaking sounds were from the tenants above me. Obviously.

I made the mistake of telling some people that earthquakes are kind of fun (typhoons too), and sort of offended them. After all, you know, people die (and are dying) because of these things. Just because all I experience is a gentle rolling and some minor excitement doesn’t mean I shouldn’t spend every moment pondering if there are serious ramifications elsewhere in the world. I think I’m going to find a corner and flog myself in penance.

Actually, now I feel this has tottered from serious to the not-taking-it-seriously-enough end again. Difficult. You can’t win with these things.

On a lighter note, I recently sent an email to a bunch of friends, ridden with horrible English language errors. It would seem that even though I’m not totally totally immersed in Japanese here, diluted environment still leaches my English skillz away. There was stuff there that annoys the heck out of ME – misused it’s and semi-conjugations and…very very sad.

Hits and misses (2)

More thoughts on staying and going.

Hits (as in, coolness)
Fireworks!

Fireworks

umm…and fireworks.

Misses (as in, stuff I miss)
Having real speakers instead of laptop ones
Having a non-itchy nose (Is it the detergent? The AC? The office? Who knows…)

But back to the fireworks!  Sumida river’s fireworks festival/hanabi taikai (literally, fire flower big event) is one of the biggest in Tokyo.  What’s awesome is Japanese people love fireworks, and lots of cities have these festivals. There are 12 within the 23 Tokyo city wards alone, plus a bunch more in the Kanto area.  Annd they publish the # of fireworks getting launched at each one, so you can identify the biggies!

They sell sparklers and stuff at the supermarket too. Fireworks, friends, and fooood. Kind of impossible to not be super happy with that triple threat combo.  I contributed Tabish’s banana bread.  Was well received, of course.

Gonna have to have me another little party sometime soon, methinks.  Heh, after I check out the one at Meiji Jingu this Thursday.  Clocks in at a pretty sizable 10,000 fizzies.  Really…you can’t have too enough of sparkly lights and good company.  No pics to take at this one though.  SLR is out on loan for the week.

Lying is a life skill

Sad doggy in Shibuya
Sad doggy in Shibuya, with toilet paper shreds. Okay, okay, they're felt strips. Still though...

I’ve found that I’m really good at convincing other people, when I’ve actually fooled myself first.

And in the same way that you can magically ignore text messages when you know who they’re from and don’t care, you can amazingly ignore (and hence convince yourself) of surprisingly interesting things.

Say, hypothetically, one is leaving a comfortable (mosquito free!) apartment with an awesome view in a delicious (in many ways) city.

Say, in as soon as…hm…let’s just pick…eleven…weeks.

In such a case, it makes sense to, for the sake of sanity and general happiness, change the brain’s course from the pattern of “but I haven’t..” and “there’s still….!”or “but the __ is SO GOOD” and .. right.

It becomes useful to observe that…

  • The current English reading collection pathetic
  • $5 for a mealy apple is unacceptable
  • Having more fingers than good friends is somewhat sad
  • Watching So You Think You Can Dance over low def flash video is even sadder

And on the flip(state)side um…

  • The Camry needs some love
  • A batch of unfinished smackdown is begging to be delivered.  Two batches, actually.
  • Whole Foods Sandwiches
  • People. Dogs.  Dogs that aren’t like little children with bug eyes and rhinestone accessories and…
  • Really Spicy Food
  • Non goopy “Chinese” food

Righto.  Tally ho, and all that.  Looks like I’ll be seeing most of ya’ll sooner rather than later.

Hypothetically, that is.  Haven’t quite bought my ticket yet. ;) 11 weeks is a long time!

I’ll need it.  Lots of stuff to do.

Stuff like…trying miso ice cream.

Miso soft cream
Miso soft cream from Tokyu Food Show

(FYI: It tastes like rich, buttery caramel.  Totally gonna try to make it myself someday.)